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Welcome to the official Netflix blog. The authors of this blog are various members of the Netflix team, proud to be helping change the way people watch television and delivering on the promise of Internet TV. This blog is a place for us to share some of what we are doing.

Twitter Updates

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

We get suggestions from our friends for new things to watch and we connect with our friends through the shared enjoyment of a great movie or TV show.

Starting today, Netflix members in the U.S. can share their favorite shows and movies on Netflix with friends by connecting to Facebook and agreeing to share.

By default, sharing will only happen on Netflix. You'll see what titles your friends have watched in a new “Watched by your friends” row and what they have rated four or five stars in a new “Friends’ Favorites” row. Your friends will also be able to see what you watch and rate highly.

Watch this video for a full demonstration.

You are in control of what gets shared. You can choose not to share a specific title by clicking the “Don't Share This” button in the player. You can also visit your “Social Settings” in “Your Account” on Netflix.com to turn on additional sharing to Facebook or stop sharing altogether.

We will be adding the ability to turn on these features for our US members over the coming days, so keep an eye out for them. All U.S. Netflix members will have access to the social features by the end of this week.

Sharing movies and TV with friends online is still a new experience and we will continue to experiment and improve our social features over the coming months and years.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Today we launched the “Netflix ISP Speed Index,” a new Web site that gives consumers insight into which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide the best Netflix streaming experience.

Located at http://ISPSpeedIndex.Netflix.com/ the new Web site provides an easy overview of the performance of ISPs in several of the countries Netflix is available in. Updated on a monthly basis, the site allows for easy comparison of ISPs in a country as well as international comparisons. At launch the Netflix ISP Speed Index includes data for the U.S., Mexico, Ireland, U.K., Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

A few data points from the new Netflix ISP Speed Index, reflecting data for February:

At 3.35Mbps, Google Fiber in the U.S. provides the highest average Netflix streaming bitrate anywhere Netflix is available

Netflix members in Finland receive, on average, the highest bitrates, while members in Mexico have the slowest connections, on average

Scandinavia proves its reputation as a great broadband region, all ISPs in Denmark, Sweden and Finland delivered averages above 2Mbps

The launch coincides with the release of our February ISP Rankings, which are on the ISP Speed Index and also below for just the U.S.

The Netflix ISP Speed Index is based on data from the more than 33 million Netflix members who view over 1 billion hours of TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix per month. The listed speeds reflect the average performance of all Netflix streams on each ISP's network and are an indicator of the performance typically experienced across all users on an ISP network.

Note: the average performance is below the peak performance due to many factors including the variety of encodes Netflix uses to deliver the TV shows and movies as well as the variety of devices members use and home network conditions. These factors cancel out when comparing across ISPs.